Washington, Feb. 13 (PTI): US federal authorities claimed to have unearthed a major H-1B visa racket with the arrest of at least 11 persons, most of them suspected to be of Indian origin.

Although the officials did not reveal the citizenship of those arrested, the names indicated that almost all of them were either Indians or persons of Indian origin.

Vision Systems Group, an IT company headquartered in South Plainfield, New Jersey, had used fraudulent documents to bring H-1B visa workers into the country, US attorney Matthew Whitker claimed at a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

Vision Systems Group, with a branch office in Coon Rapids, Iowa, has been indicted on 10 federal counts, including conspiracy and mail fraud charges. Viswa Mandalapu is the company’s CEO and president, according to the information available on its website.

The US government is seeking forfeiture of $7.4 million raised through the alleged offences.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as this investigation goes,” Whitker said.

Besides Vision Systems Group, five other companies are under the scanner for alleged visa fraud. Two of them, Worldwide Software Services and Sana Systems, are based in Iowa.

According to the list of those arrested by the federal authorities, Shiva Neeli was arrested in Boston, Ramakrishna Maguluri in Atlanta, Villiappan Subbaiah in Dallas and Suresh Pola in Philadelphia.

Chockalingham Palaniappan and Vijay Myneni were arrested in San Jose while Venkata Guduru and Amit Justa were held in New Jersey. Another person arrested was Karambir Yadav.

All of them were arrested on Wednesday on charges of conspiracy and mail fraud, the attorney said. Vishnu Reddy, the president of Pacific West Corporation of Santa Clara in California, was arrested in Los Angeles.

Praveen Andapally, the president of Venturisoft Inc in South Plainfield, New Jersey, was arrested on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and for false statement in immigration matters.

According to the indictment, Vision Systems failed to maintain a permanent office for workers in Iowa while most of its employees worked in different states.